Labour And Preserving Life in A Jar

 There is only ten minutes to the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Labour

I have been physically busy over the last few days on the weekend designed to give us a reprieve from labour lol. Though my body is tired and sore, missing the yoga I have been limited in doing because of this pain n my side, I put myself to work.  I love hard physical labor...that would shock all those who know of  my disdain for housework...but I do.  I love using my body for some useful purpose, putting it to task.  And though cleaning for myself is like a "I will get to it someday"...cleaning for others who are unable to because of their own physical and mental limitations is something I actually enjoy. So I cleaned the apartment downstairs while the tenants were away. I told Google  to play  my man "Bruce" ( Bruce Springsteen, in case you are wondering) and for hours each day I  worked along at what first  seemed to be an insurmountable task until everything was clean and tidy. It may not have helped the pain in my body, in fact it made it worse,  but it helped the discomfort in my mind.  I was not using this work as a distraction.  I was using it as a single point of focus. It was a wonderful mindfulness practice where I was not focused on outcome but on being there for each of the many steps needed.  I enjoyed it.  I enjoyed the finished product but had no real attachment to it.  I knew that it would not stay the way I left it for very long and I was perfectly okay with that as I shut the door behind me. I found joy and meaning in the actual labor. Strange, I know. 

Ten Minute Life Span?

Then I canned pears.  My pear trees were more than generous in their giving this year. The branches of one tree in particular, was drooping with the weight of its abundant harvest. I didn't want to ungratefully waste that harvest by allowing the fruit to just fall. Such a bounty was meant to be given away... so we decided to can. I never canned pears before so it required some research and learning.  I made a batch of what I call my "Soft and Sweet" pears...hot packed in a light syrup. And today I intend to make a big batch of what I will call my "Rustic pears" ...unpeeled, cold packed, with just a hint of sugar in the liquid for preservation purposes. These fruit, though seemingly imperfect, are so yummy and don't need added sweetness. I prefer peelings on fruit ( as long as they are free from chemicals) because of the extra fiber, minerals  and vitamins found in that. I want this batch to be as close to eating a pear directly from the tree as possible.  Imagine having that sensation experience in the middle of winter! It is like I am capturing the perfect moment in time and "stilling" it in a jar instead of in a photo.  Ultimate  savouring! I want as many people as possible to have that experience and my trees are making that easy. Of course, I will give away as much fresh fruit as I can but you know pears...they do not last long. So I will also busy myself canning, probably could make 36 jars of both kinds ...no problem ...and  will give most of them away. I love having this mini-purpose.

Inspiring me to make pickles and salsa too!!! It is a joy to take what nature offers, and using these bodies that were meant to labour, preserve and share its bounty.

All is well!

Learning To Let Go of Preferences

 The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

Third Zen Patriarch

"Sensory perceptions", "Thoughts", "Feelings", Emotions", "Judgements", "Views", and "Actions".

Instead...

Wouldn't it be great if, instead of getting lost in the story and drama of the mind when things go wrong, we could just notice and group whatever comes up under one of these categories of mental formation/modification?  Instead of  allowing the narrative to take off when someone, for example,  stands you up, instead of allowing yourself to get lost in the starring role of that drama with, "I can't believe they didn't show up!  How rude!  Man, they are so inconsiderate.  I have been such a good friend and they treat me like this??? Imagine! That is so bad, so wrong.  It shouldn't be!",  you could simply watch and label it as "Thought! " 

Wouldn't it be awesome if instead of getting all worked up when you  form judgments, you could just say "Judgement!" ?

Wouldn't it be cool if when you feel the drama build up in your body...a knot forming in your gut, hands closing into fists as you begin to pace back and forth, when there is the feeling of agitation and discomfort , you could just say "Bodily Sensation!" ?

When you notice  the typical anger and resistance towards  the incident brewing inside, you could just say, "Emotion!"?

When you call someone else just to complain.  "They didn't show up!  They always do this...they are so inconsiderate." You could just say "Reacting!"? 

When you catch yourself   looking for pity and validation for your "self"  in the starring role of this drama as righteousness victim, you could just say "seeking to strengthen ego identity".  

When you get what you want from the other and it is giving you an identity, a certain power, you could just say, "Wrong Collective View! " ?

When the anger builds as you tell  yourself you have a "right" to it, and you call the person who didn't show up. When they do not answer you hear your mind saying "Oh they forgot about me, did they? Of course, that is just like them!", prompting you to leave a nasty, nasty message on their phone and storm off....you could say "Wrong Action."?

Normal To React

We don't tend to do that though, do we? Instead of just noticing the tendency of the mind to react a certain way, instead of noticing the conditioned reaction to sensory perceptions, instead of noticing the bodily response, the thoughts, the feelings , the emotions and the judgments as an objective observer and "learning" from it...most of us allow ourselves to get pulled right in.  Ego-self  often gets louder than our calm, wise  Self.  We get pulled in and we close off the connection to wise Self. 

Another Story...

Now, after you spend hours fuming and lost in the drama your mind created, you find out that the person who was supposed to show up got in an accident on their way to you, how would you respond then?  You would lose yourself in another drama, another reaction  wouldn't you? One where you are the villain, not the victim. 

Normal but Not Necessary

Do not beat yourself up for this reactivity.  It is a very "normal" conditioned tendency most of us have within us. You are not alone and most people would empathize and sympathize with your plight, agreeing that you are indeed the victim or the villain. But it  serves absolutely no one when we react in this way when things are not as we prefer them to be. 

Preference Is The Problem

It is our preference, and our desire for things of the external world to be a certain way that leads us into this mess..  When we slip from observer to victim or villain in our mental stories, we do what most of the population does but it is so unnecessary and so unwholesome. 

Learning When Things Go Wrong

The good news is we can use this reactivity as a learning opportunity! When things go wrong, when things are not as we prefer them to be, we can take a step back and observe how the mind is working. We can simply watch it and at some point instead of closing up to the experience with our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, emotions, judgements, views and actions...we simply "don't close!" We allow it all to be exactly as it is and simply observe. We learn! 

We can learn to stop reacting, to go deeper, to stop preferring  from every less than preferrable situation we experience. 

All is good. 

Let's be grateful for all those occasions when things go wrong.  They are always an opportunity for going deeper....It is always miraculous to suddenly realize you can be free of externals, as far as your inner state is concerned. 

Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle () Staying Present When Something Goes Wrong: A Meditation With Eckhart Tolle.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXXmvcYCG34.

Michael A. Singer. What Do You Really Want? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-9j3AjdO3E

Ailing Soul; Ailing Body

 The soul suffers when the body is diseased or traumatized, while the body suffers when the soul is ailing.

Aristotle

My soul is ailing.

I feel pain in my body and it says so much. My body, my container,  that has been storing all this corrosive junk inside me...that has been so busy using the mind, its master switch, to squeeze those hoses tightly to prevent more "bad" from coming in,  therefore inadvertently  limiting the  infusion of joy into my experience over the course of my life, over the last few years, especially the last few months...resulting in a mere dribbling of what I am able to give...is breaking down.  I know that. 

In my awareness, I am merely witnessing it...no longer feeling the need to call out to the mechanics to come and fix it.  I put myself in shut down mode and I am simply observing what is...wondering if  this container is repairable or if it is approaching its expiration date. Is it time for a replacement? There is no fear...just a questioning.

Hmm! I am just observing.  I am not clinging or grasping or resisting any longer. I am just noticing and allowing. In this "shut down" I know a lot of toxic sludge is rising from the bottom and coming up making the experience of Life I am perceiving and offering a little more  contaminated, darker and heavier than I want it to be...but the sludge has to come out. It is the soul's wish. Whether there is any hope for restoring this container or not...I want it to be clean and spacious inside. The residue has to be flushed out so I can experience that spaciousness of what I really am. 

All is well

The Process of Life

 The Good Life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. 

Carl Rogers

Containers in the Life Factory

I just had this image of me as a big container( the body) in a factory for the  experience of the "Good" Life...abundant, joyful, loving Life. 

In this factory, I am simply one container of 7 billion that look kind of like me, and trillions and trillions of others that don't. The whole purpose of this factory of "life" is to create  a full experience  that the factory owner can enjoy through us.  We in turn get to enjoy it too as important instruments in this factory...as important elements of it. We are shareholders in the company that created us.  We are the company and the finished product...not separate containers.  Each and everyone of us is the whole. 

Form in Space

What appears to be important in this factory is the "form"...that which makes each container and all other structures in this factory , that which appears to separate each structure from the "other". Yet the whole structure was built in space and within each container is that space and each atom of form that creates the "appearance" of this factory is space...Spacious emptiness is what makes this factory what it is. Yet, in limited awareness, we can only perceive the "form".  Because we can not see the One Unifying space, we see each container as separate from the other instead of the "whole" and tend to believe that is the way it is. 

The Individual Container

Like every other container, there is a hose going into "me" ( the name the container gives itself)  and a hose going out.  Everything that enters is meant to mix together and then flow through leaving no residue. We are given the amazing opportunity, as individual  containers to  experience this process with great joy and love. 

The Secret Recipe

The factory design is perfect leading to the perfect product. There is a recipe being used that  we cannot "know"  with our limited minds. The creator knows that recipe well, which ingredients to add to each individual container to create the perfect mixture that will l add to the "whole" when it leaves us.  This process is a  perfect one surviving billions and billions  of years. 

The Desired Ingredients

So many wonderful , "pleasant" sensations and feelings flow into us  from the  life circumstances we encounter in order to create the full experience. They flow through the hose that says "in". They add tremendous texture and taste to what we "personally" experience and to what comes out of us, intent on making the finished product amazing and delightful for all other containers, for the factory, and for the factory creator.   If , however, we are not fully mature and aware of the factory's mission statement, our job description, and  our connection to all other containers on the team, we may become a little self absorbed, imaging it is all about us. We may come to believe  that we are the center of this every changing factory. We may then be  tempted to  keep some of the "good" feelings inside our containers for our "little personal selves". We may become extra  alert in our attention and selection of the stuff that comes in, determined to get as much of the good stuff we can, grasping and clinging and holding onto the desired ingredients instead of letting it all flow through us. When we do that we are not fulfilling  our role, our purpose and we therefore fail to serve the factory. When we fail the factory we do not serve the others in it and we ultimately do not serve ourselves. We do not enjoy the process.

The Unwanted ingredients

The mixture of Life  we are intended to help create requires a variety of different experiences to come into us through that "in" hose. Many are tasty and desirable. Some of the ingredients that go into the mixture, however, are not always pleasant and may even be seen as painful, dangerous, toxic and corrosive to our insides if they do not flow through as quickly as they come in. These ingredients of anger, pain, fear, confusion, sadness, loss..., however,  are so necessary for the full experience of Life that the manufacturer is trying to produce through us. Still, if we are not aware of our true purpose in this factory, if we begin to believe that we are just separate containers, randomly placed here or there,  and not an integral part of a whole complex network...we may get lost in the  desires of "self". We may then attempt to block this "potentially painful" stuff from coming in...squeezing these hoses as tightly as we can or pushing the "slush of pain and suffering" down into the bottom of our container so we do not experience it. When we do that these important ingredients  do not mix well with all the other important ingredients of Life  and they do not flow through as they are meant to. The toxic slush accumulates inside us, corroding and damaging our insides living a thick residue instead of spaciousness. The  hoses also become so plugged and constricted that  even the ingredients we want are unable to flow through. We close ourselves off from receiving from Life all that is and therefore our "output" of Life is so greatly diminished. 

The Neutral Ingredient

There are so many "neutral" ingredients  that are meant to flow through too...and because of their elemental nature may flow through easily. If we are too busy looking for the "bad" or the "good" the neutral can slip by  without us even noticing them.  If we do not "notice" them, they will not mix with the other ingredients well and our "output" will be lacking in holistic quality. Neutral ingredients are just as important in creating our experience of Life as are the others. 

All Ingredients and Sticking to the Recipe

Every single ingredient is called for in this recipe to ensure a quality product. All ingredients of sensation, feeling, experience are meant to come in, mix quickly with each other in our awareness, and flow out. As long as we see ourselves as separate containers , fending for ourselves, desiring and clinging to some ingredients ,denying or pushing down others we alter the recipe. We get in the way, preventing the intended product from being experienced. We are interfering with Life! We can create great suffering for ourselves and others when we do that...when we think we know better and try to alter  the the original design. We do not know better than God!

Can you see yourself as a container with an "in" hose and an "out" hose? If so, what kind of product is coming out of you?  Is it the miraculous one that was intended for you? Are you expressing Life in its full mystery and beauty? Or have you altered the recipe? 

Altered the Recipe

I can see myself as a container...meant to be full of the space on which this factory was created, meant to have a free flow of experience "in"  and an undiluted flow of experience "out" as I remain "empty"...but that is not the way it is.  

I know the hose that is there to let the good stuff flow in is  pretty closed off to receiving.  I have a big clot of  unworthiness blocking the flow, and a kink brought on by squeezing it  in order to stop any more "bad" from coming in.  This   keeps the "good" from flowing in freely.  Yet the negative  still gets through a channel of "deserving of punishment" .  I see myself as an independent container left to my own devices, not worthy to handle the "good" ingredients and deserving of  the toxic feelings of the "bad". With this wrong view ,I have altered the recipe big time.  I am lacking in enjoyment and have overabundance in toxic sludge.   My mixture is way off balance. Though I sincerely want to give. and fulfill a purpose here...what comes out of "me" from the hose that says "out" is often coming out in pathetic  dribbles. Or it comes out contaminated  with the toxic sludge of past pain that floats to the top from the bottom of "me" .  Like many of the containers,  I am full of sludge when I am meant to be clean and spacious. I am corroding on the inside, and pinched off to allowing more of the positive in.  I have altered Life's recipe, Life's design big time.  I created a mess where there was supposed to be nothing but inviting space for all experiences to flow in  and out of "me".  This new stuff that I created with my grasping and my resistance is so thick, it barely flows. Still, I am desperately trying to give from the small dribbles that come out of me. Obviously, it is not enough.  I am not serving the other containers, I am not serving Life and I am not serving myself. The version of this recipe I created with my need to fix and control Life...is hurting "me"!

Allowing the Boss to take Over

So what does one do when they realize they have goofed up in the factory and are not producing what they could produce?  They give the controls back to the factory Creator. They allow the boss to take over. 

A "shut down" may be called for so that all containers can be repaired and cleaned out. That "shut down" is a stopping in our doing, our achieving, our fixing and controlling. We find that "shutdown" in stillness. We use mindfulness and meditation to open those "in" hoses to all that is...the pleasant, unpleasant and the neutral.  We remind ourselves that we don't know the recipe. We don't know what ingredients are required to create the  finished product....we do not need to.  We do not have to "do" anything but let it in. We can simply experience it all coming through us exactly as it is meant to . We allow it inside and we mix it with mindful awareness.  We cling to none of it.  allowing all of it  and then when it is mixed with awareness we let it all go. When it goes, the toxic sludge we have stored inside will go too...we let it.  We cling to none of it.  We make a clean and spacious inner container our priority for the sake of the factory, for the sake of the finished product, for  the sake of all other containers and for the sake of our own happiness.  We just allow it all to flow through, enjoying the process as we do.

Hmm! Well that is what came to mind.

All is well. 

Who is listening?

 Who is looking when you have no labels for your perception or when you're listening to a bird or the sound of the ocean? ....Who is listening? Are you there, a person, with a history, that is listening or is there a deeper I that has emerged  and the sensory perception is happening against the background of or in the deep space of that deep I?  In which case, you could say that  the universe is listening to itself, ...suddenly that listening is an enormous addition to the universe. The universe is awakening to itself, to its own depth. and its own beauty through you. But you can only fulfill that function...if you are not excessively burdened, excessively trapped in your personalized sense of self. 

Eckhart Tolle

In the early beginner guided mindfulness videos, that I do at this point mostly for practice, I neglect, intentionally, to ask that very profound question: Who is looking and listening?  I just want the individual to simply look and listen without judgement first...I want them to practice doing that before we get to the point where they can start becoming  aware of being aware. 

This ancient wisdom that Tolle passes on in his video can be life changing and freeing when we are ready to realize that truth.  Of course, that notion of getting beyond our personalized version of self is a part of the equation here.  The universe can not listen to the sound of the ocean through us if our overactive minds are in the way.

Anyway, it is all good.

EckhTolle (August, 2022) What is the Main Purpose of Your Life? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5NFgN-djJQ

Four Types of Yogis, One Yoga

 Yoga is an ancient art based on an extremely subtle science, that of the body, mind and soul.  The prolonged practice of yoga will, in time, lead the student to a sense of peace and a feeling of being at one with his or her [their] environment.

B.K. S. Iyengar

What type of yogi are you?

There are said to be four types of yoga...that path that can take us to full realization. They are: Bhakti, Jnana/Gnana, Kriya, and Karma Yoga. I believe  a yogi, someone committed to the practice of yoga, will travel through all four paths at some point in their journey. All paths are required. I know, I have been down a few of these paths and continue to travel on them. 

I, like most westerns,  started out with  one of the limbs of Astanga called Hatha...that which we do on the mat.  I was not looking for "yoga" when I began...just a way to tone and stretch my muscles.  I was missing so much of what yoga is. I actually resisted, at first, the pranayama, meditation  and mudra practice  which was probably the only "real" yoga I was doing in these early yoga sessions. It was not until I began to embrace them that I began on the first path to becoming a real yogi. Kriya yoga is a means of using breath, body position and chanting to help release and stimulate the flow of Shakti energy in the body and mind rapidly. The great Yogananda said that one kriya achieves in a half minute  what it would take other practices to achieve in one year. Am  I a proficient  Kriya yogi? Definitely not but it is a part of my practice.

I then advanced to studying everything I could about yoga and self realization, taking my truth seeking beyond yoga to other spiritual masters and texts. I was on the path to knowledge and wisdom and becoming a Jnana Yogi. This is the path I spend most of my time and energy on. This also lead me from the texts to the internal inner wisdom. Even though I still read whatever I can get my hands on and devotedly listen to wise teachers,  I started going inward to examine and explore my mind and to seek to realize directly what it is I am to know about self and Life. I find this path absolutely captivating and it is why I write to you today.  I am indeed, though  a novice, and very, very immature and underdeveloped, a Jnana Yogi. 

I have begun from here to take steps along the Bhakti path of love and devotion. Though I have always had a deep love for God, my understanding of "God" in conceptual terms has changed dramatically since I started on the yogic path. My love and devotion has grown.  My heart is now open to what is and no longer closed by narrow minded conditioning and belief. Buddhism and Taoism have helped to take my Christian understanding and the glimpses of Hindu understanding I have been exposed to on my yogic journey to a whole new level of love and devotion to Life. I am also becoming a Bhakti yogi.

Now, I find myself on the Karmic path of selfless action...even though I am far from self less at this point and have no idea what my karmic dharma is supposed to be...I am embracing the karmic path. I so want to be a Karma Yogi. 

So I don't know about you but when I ask myself , "What kind of a yogi are you?" , I find myself answering, "I am simply a yogi, seeking to be at one with my environment".

All is well.

The Art of Suffering Well

 The art of happiness is also and at the same time the art of knowing how to suffer well... 

Do you suffer well? Or Are You Drowning In It? 

It is possible to get stuck in the "mud" of life. It's easy enough to notice mud all over you at times.  The hardest thing to practice is not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by despair....But we must remember that suffering is a kind of mud that we need in order to generate joy and happiness.  Without suffering, there's no happiness.  So we shouldn't discriminate against the mud. 

Discriminating Against the Mud

I read those words of Thich Nhat Hanh's from, No Mud, No Lotus,  last night and they resonated in me. I know I have been "stuck in the mud" and all I have been noticing is mud. Life somehow felt "wrong, bad, shouldn't be."  I fell into those judgements of it and began discriminating against the muddy/painful life circumstances that were simply enfolding in front of me. All I could see and smell was mud and I did not like it. 

 Everyone knows we need to have mud for lotuses to grow.  The mud doesn't smell so good, but the lotus flower smells very good.  If you don't have mud, the lotus won't manifest. You can't grow lotus flowers on marble.

No Mud, No Lotus

Part of me wants a life without any suffering.  I catch myself saying out loud, "Just for a bit...let me be free from suffering.  Let the circumstances flow freely.  Let all suffering end!" 

Then I am reminded to question , once again: Without suffering how would we know joy? Suffering and joy, I am reminded,  go together. 

Thinking we should be able to have a life without any suffering is as deluded as thinking we should be able to have a left side without a right side ...If we can learn to see and skillfully engage with both the presence of happiness and the presence of suffering, we will go in the direction of enjoying life more.  Everyday we go a little farther in the direction, and eventually we realize that suffering and happiness are not two separate things....If you can recognize and accept your pain without running away from it, you will discover that although pain is there, joy can also be there at the same time. 

Slipping

I feel like I have gotten quite far in my realization that suffering and happiness are not two separate things.  For a great part of the time, I stand  on the shore watching them float by...aware of the putrid yet earthy  smell of the mud, and the sweet and sometimes sickening smell of the lotus flower.  I see how interdependent they are. I see that apparent opposites are nothing but the same thing when I remove duality. I recognize and accept my pain. I can look at it calmly and objectively. I  think I am "there!"

Then ...all of a sudden the ever changing  winds of life  stirs up the mud, I lose my footing and  I fall into the muddy water again.  While I splash around in it, all I see and feel is the heaviness of the mud. It is like I am drowning in it. I do not  notice the lotus flowers as they float by. I am too busy splashing and thrashing in my attempt not to be consumed by this suffering. 

Surrender to What Is

It isn't until I stop resisting and allow myself to be still, surrendering to what is, allowing the pain and the mud to be a part of my experience, that I am able, once again, to notice the lotuses that were always there. Those lotuses that would not be there, if it wasn't for the mud. Stillness brings insight. But becoming still when you think you are drowning is not easy. Yet, that is exactly what we must do...surrender to what is. Life will blow the lotus in front of us, life will stir up the mud.  That is just the way it is. We can notice and allow it all. 

Suffer Well

We all have seeds of anger, sadness, frustration and despair within us that get stirred up by the circumstances of life.  We also have seeds of compassion, mindfulness, insight. We can use those seeds to help us embrace our suffering so we ...do not escape it or get drowned by it...but learn to suffer well.

We have to learn how to embrace and cradle our own suffering and the suffering of the world, with a lot of tenderness. 

All is well.

Wise words from:

Thich Nhat Hanh (2014 ) No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering. Parallax Press (Kindle Edition)

Wanting To Be a Karma Yogi

 My Life is my message.

Ghandi

Do you want to be a karma yogi?

I want to make my life my message, regardless of what I accomplish or achieve. Like Ghandi, I want to follow the path of Karma Yoga. 

Karma yoga, according to the yogapedia  is the path of  action, or selfless service toward others. Again we get into this "self-less" conundrum. Ram Dass, in the below linked video, tells us that Karma yoga is doing what you do for others with the intention of doing it for self. It is we who benefit when we help others...but then again..."other" and self do not really exist. 

He also reminds us that we are all just beings in different costumes...sometimes we see ourselves as the apparent "doer" and other times the "apparent" receiver of the doing but we are truly neither of these. We are not what we do, the jobs we have, the roles we play. We are not the actors doing the action or those receiving the action. We can simply witness and observe the action getting done without attempting to own any of it because we are not that. We are the beings, beyond the doing.

Some people would look at Mother Teresa, Dass explains, and see that what she was doing was good and noble.  She, on the other hand, would see it differently...just as something that served her and her "dharma" . Mother Teresa was simply administering to her beloved Christ through the distressing form of the  leopards and that served her.  

We would benefit by approaching our "doing" without attachment to outcome...understanding that Life is the process, not the product. Karma yoga  isn't about the action getting done...it is simply the doing, the serving with "being" in mind. Ram Dass   reminds us that we serve others in order to serve self and  by serving self we serve others. We do so without expecting or needing to get it done.  Each step of this action, in the here and now, is the karma.

Reminded of these words and am not sure who they were from:

It is not what you do that matters but how much of you is in the doing.

We can live this moment fully with all of it present. 

How about a place quiet inside where you can look at it all and say, "yes......there is suffering and there is joy. My dharma is to do this. I am doing it. I am at peace with the universe. It is what it is.  It includes horror and beauty and it is all unfolding and I am part of it.  I am part of it, like the winds, the mountains and the rivers. I am a part of it. And I am at peace."

 And the actions, and every action that catches you is another action to awaken and see how it caught you and to bring you back into a center. Then you are a karma yogi. Then you a karma yogi.  And when a karma yogi, a real yogi meets another yogi it is only itself meeting itself through all the different forms of the dance, of the dialogue between two parts of itself...  

Ram Dass

All is well

Ram Dass/Be Here and Now Network (n.d.) Ram Dass: Getting Free With Karma Yoga,Part 1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEHx5B0fuPc

Yogapedia ( Aug, 2020) What is Karma Yoga? https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5020/karma-yoga

What is Going On With This Site?

 Need Your Help for Admin Issues

My readership has been way, way down for a bit now and I was just informed by someone that they were no longer getting my posts through email? I am not sure why or what is happening. I apologize for any inconvenience. 

Since I began this blog years ago my stats have consistently registered "no followers" but I have had followers. Comments from others, I am told, also often do not come through. 

I did not realize that since mid-July I have not been receiving any emails of my posts either...meaning that all automatic emails have ceased. 

I went to settings and seen that email was disabled.  When I opened that up I noticed a bogus email address attached to  @ blogger.com??? That was done without my consent. Was this an administrative thing and why did they add such an account? I am unable to edit that email address. 

I have asked others to resubscribe but they cannot do so unless they have a yahoo, netvibe or atom account? 

I cannot see where I can contact the administrator for help? 

I have been through a lot and I am not overly trusting as a result.  This may merely be an administrative thing, but it seems very suspicious to me.  What could be happening and why? 

If you tap into this incidentally, and I am assuming that that is the only way you will be able tap into it and you have an idea of what is going on please let me know in the above mindful serenity address...I appreciate it.

All the best ...

 all is is well. 

Loving One Self into No-Self

 The first love of oneself has to rise in your own heart. If the love has not risen for yourself it cannot rise for anybody either. One has to love one's body and one has to love ones soul. The person who loves himself is bound to become more silent and meditative, than the person who does not love himself. If you love yourself you will be nourishing yourself. When you love yourself you will discover that others will love you. Nobody loves a person who does not love himself. To love yourself is of immense spiritual value. 

The person who loves himself will find that there is no self in him. Love always melts the self. Whenever you love, the self disappears. Ego and love cannot exist together. The less a person is loving himself, the more egoistic a person is. The more you love yourself, the
more you will find that the self disappears. For moments, you will find that the self is not there and only love is there. ”
― Swami Dhyan Giten, The Call of the Heart 

From: Good reads:https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/no-self#:~:text=The%20thoughts%20of%20the%20mind,mind%20thinks%20us%20into%20creation.%E2%80%9D&text=%E2%80%9CIf%20you%20love%20another%20person,have%20to%20become%20a%20nobody.

Hmm! I was looking for wise words that would clear up my confusion. Not sure if those words above help me to get past my conundrum or if they confuse me more. Sigh! 

It is obvious , as others have pointed out, that I, like many others,  do not love "myself"  enough. I never really did.  Other people's needs have always seemed to be more important than my own.  It always felt like I was here to serve others, make others happy, deny myself etc...like I am supposed to be always available for others to lean on but I am never supposed to lean on others, that I am supposed to always give but never take. So that is how I operate. That is how my mind works for a hundred different reasons. Is that spiritual or is that sick?

It seems like I do not love myself but it feels that I genuinely love others, deeply and profoundly, so I must love myself? If the love has not risen for yourself, it cannot rise for anybody either. What about you?  Do you love others and therefore yourself?

I do love my soul but I just don't tend to view it as "my" soul...it is just soul.  I appreciate my body / this body that the  soul is in but maybe I don't love it enough.  That could be true. Do you love your body and soul enough? 

I am more silent and meditative than most people I know but I also share the secrets of "my" heart very freely. Are you silent and meditative in your self love? 

I do not, however, nourish myself in the ways others tell me I should. I have no interest going to a spa or  going for a mani-pedi or even a haircut...couldn't afford it anyway. I am not even sure what nourishes me and what part of me needs to be nourished. I mean writing nourishes the soul...so I write.  Time with "my"  grandchildren nourish the soul...so I try to spend time with them. Solitude and nature nourishes soul...I have not spent enough time lately in nature. Do you nourish yourself...I mean your soul? 

I know people love me, conditionally, but do they love me for who I really am beneath what I can offer to them?  I don't know.  The above words say unless I love myself I will never truly realize that I am loved by others.  Is that the way for you as well?

To love yourself is of  immense  spiritual value?  We are to love "self" then, this thing that does not exist as part of our spiritual practice? We are to love that "mara", that obstacle on our path to understanding?  Why? 

So when we love ourselves , we discover there is no "self" within us? Does that make sense to you?

And for the next part: When we love, self melts away, but we cannot love unless we love this self that melts away?? So we need to love our ego just so that it disappears?? Yet ego and love cannot exist together??

So is the author saying that the more we love our ego...the illusion of "self"...the faster we make it go away, that true love begins with loving that which is so unimportant...our own egos? 

Maybe Love, loves itself through us and our realization that there is no "self".

Good and confusing, eh?

Anyway, all is well in my world!

The Breaking Point and No-Self

 

Giving It All Away

Who is it giving it away?

Slipped again into the muddy waters of life circumstance. Once again, I lost my footing in the calm, nonjudgmental, non reactive part of my being and  became overwhelmed.  I had a mini breakdown. I cried, I got mad at others whether they deserved it or not, I literally fell to my knees crying out to the world, "I can't take any more." Only to be given more...big stuff more: another loved one had another psychotic break, needing more of me than I could give. I had nothing left to give him except an hour of my listening time and sound advice that psychiatry and medication was greatly needed. I could not give him my space or any more of my energy than I already spent on him over the years.  I mean...I am bone dry on this side of the damn...I am completely, completely  dry and that is a scary sensation.  I feel that I cannot water, nurture, give to others because I have nothing left to give. But there the others are, frightened and in pain, holding their cups out to me and there is nothing in me to pour. I felt the pain of that dryness, that frustration, that guilt and yes that "self-pity".  I was also resentful and angry with this "idea" I had that "others"  and life were demanding every ounce of " me". 

Crying Up and Breaking Down

Whose drowning?  Who is dry?

The emotional energy reached a peak. The damns that were keeping these turbulent waters in "me" let go a bit and I was glad for the release. It was much needed. There was way too much pressure building up on the other side. Doing so also made others aware that "I" (whoever "I" is or "me" is) was drowning on one side, dried up and shriveling on the other (whether that is ultimately a "good" thing or a "bad" thing, I don't know) in these waters of circumstance.  In psychological terms, the realization that I was reaching or have reached the breaking point was suddenly obvious to all. To me, it was a big "Ohhhhh!"

The Story

Who is telling the story? Who is starring in the story? What is this story?

 So I took the "story" form of this...all the objective data, the physical circumstances, the events, the sensations and feelings this form and mind of mine is experiencing in reaction ( and I do know it is reaction and resistance...not response and allowing...that I do when I get caught up in story) to others with the soul purpose of telling my story, partly to create a dramatic effect. I was caught up in the story I was insisting that I was simply starring in  and I wanted to tell it.  I wanted them to see the story events and not the person creating the story as the source of the "problem".   I wanted others to step in and rescue this tragic heroine from her dragons...from what others and life were doing "to" her. At the very least, I wanted them to validate and support the pity I was having for this character.

Others kindly validated the dramatic nature of my story.  They stressed that, as a human being, I have  waaaay too much on my plate at one given time.  Empathizing with my ego, I suppose, they gave some very sound advice, "You need to look after yourself...you are burning out and getting sick with your attempts to "help" others.   You are not thinking enough of yourself."

Who is the "me" who needs to look after "me"

That is the sound advice any therapist would give a person presenting the story I presented. "You need to put your oxygen mask on first!  You can't pour from an empty cup.  You need to be more assertive and say "no" in order to preserve your "self" so you can later give of self.  You need to look after you."

From a psychological perspective that makes perfect sense.  So why can I not do that?   Besides the fact that I operate from deep core beliefs of my own unworthiness for self care and self compassion...there is a deeper reason.  My spiritual practice gets in the way of  "me" looking after "me."

Why do I look after "me" and how do I look after me? Who is this "me"? 

I am learning in my spiritual practice that there is no "me"...That character in that story I recently shared with  others is just that... a made up, fictional fairy tale character.  Life fluctuates between a fire blowing dragon burning this main character to embers when she is "bad and deserving" and a fairy tale God mother bearing gifts when she is "good and deserving". ( Must admit that lately there seems to be very few pumpkin changing beings in my s story and a lot of  hot-breathed dragons) . It is all just story!!!

This "me" is just part of a story...an idea created in my mind.

There is no "me"...just an "idea" of a "me", an idea of what that me needs, wants and must deny. There is no real "problems"...just an idea of what stepping  stones and obstacles are put in place  for this character so she advances or is rescued.  There is no time There is this idea of time as a "Once upon a time, a long time ago" and a "happily ever after".  There are no "problems"...problems are just ideas/ judgements and  perceptions created in the mind that lead us to resist Life. 

How do I prioritize and look after that which is only an idea in my mind?

So how do I think of me" first?  How do I put the oxygen mask on "me" first? How do I stand up to dragons and say "No" when there are no dragons?  How do I  depend on or wait hopefully for  the Fairy God mother to bless me and rescue me when there is no Fairy Godmother? How do I go back to "once upon a time" or lean towards the "happily ever after" for my fulfillment when they do not exist...There is just this moment now. 

Why do I keep telling and getting stuck in a story that is nothing more than a creation of my mind?

Hmm! So when I get the very sound and reasonable advice to start looking after my self or make myself the priority in life I question, 'How do I do that when there is no self?  How can it be draining for "self" to give t all to others when there is no "self" and therefore no "other"?

Psychologically this advice I received makes perfect sense but spiritually, it makes no sense.

I am just a bit confused.   It will all come.

All is well in my world.

Mindfulness and Meditation

 Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the moment, non-judgmentally...And then I sometimes add, in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Kendra Cherry, in her article, What is Meditation?,  in Very Well Mind, defines meditation as a, set of techniques that are intended to encourage a heightened state of awareness and focused attention. Meditation is also a consciousness changing technique that has been shown to have a wide-range of benefits on psychological well being.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-meditation-2795927#:~:text=Meditation%20can%20be%20defined%20as,benefits%20on%20psychological%20well%2Dbeing.

The Real Practice: Inviting, Not Fighting

 Every second  of your life you have an opportunity to go to God by letting go of your garbage.

Michael A. Singer

I am truly starting to see what is so necessary for our mental and emotional well being, for our ability to feel joy and to move away from the limitations of the ego to deeper consciousness...and to "Go to God", or as it is referred to in yogic terms, to be at one with everything. We need to let go of "our stuff"',  let go of our garbage that blocks the way. I used to think that meditation and studying  the truth through wise masters was the most important part of "spiritual" practice.  But now I see that the real practice is in understanding how " our  stuff" is getting in the way, recognizing when it comes up  and learning to release it. 

If you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience yoga . 

Patanjali

Michael Singer, in the below linked video ,  speaks about these "Samskaras"...this stored mental junk, (often unpleasant  emotional energy), that we have stuffed down inside our minds. This storing and stuffing creates ripples, and  mental modifications that block the Shakti (pure energy) from coming to our awareness so we can experience its joy, its freedom,  as we are meant to.  When we judge and determine which types of emotions or thoughts  we will experience in reaction to life events so that certain emotions do not come up to the surface, we  do not "escape" these emotions or put an end to them. We just hide them inside, beneath a thick mental barrier that is so challenging  and exhausting to maintain. We create a block or a barrier between these emotions, thoughts, memories, strong sensations  and then spend our lives struggling against their coming to the surface as all energy is meant to do. We go about the external world determining what will trigger them to come up and we do our best to avoid those situations, people or events.  We blame the outside world  if they do come up.  We determine what will help to keep them down and we go after those things, grasping and clinging.  

By fighting, suppressing and repressing, numbing from and avoiding these "unwanted" mental modifications, as Patanjali referred to them, constantly pushing them back down, we keep down all that "wanted" energy as well...the positive...the Shakti. We are setting ourselves up, not for freedom and joy, when we do this...but for a lot of unnecessary suffering! 

Samskaras are Mental Formations

Thich Nhat Hanh tells us  that samskaras are just  formations. (see linked video below).  He also says that many conditions must  come together to create the formation or samskara be they physical formations like a flower depending on the conditions of rain, soil, sun to help it grow or a mental formation like anger depending on  a painful memory, association, assumption etc to make it grow.    Mind is made of mental formations, like a river is made of drops of waters.  In Buddhism there are 51 categories of mental formations/samskaras that can be either positive or negative or both. 

Store consciousness and mind consciousness...

The seeds of these formations lie in store consciousness in the form of "particles" like anger or compassion.  These seeds are always there waiting to grow, to  come to the surface.   Even when we are not experiencing anger at the time, for example, the seed of anger is still there in store consciousness waiting to be watered by some external event and then it will grow into a "citta samskara" , a mental formation or modification in our  mind consciousness or conscious awareness, 

Barrier and Blocks

If we try to repress and suppress that anger or push it down, we create  a kind of barrier or block as between mind and store consciousness but the roots of that feeling are still there  just waiting to be watered. The more we hold it down...the stronger and more determined those roots are to push the emotion back up.  We often do this "pushing down", this suppressing and repressing, Hanh reminds us, by consuming with substances we put into our bodies or mental distractions we put into our minds. We create a thick  barrier between store and mind consciousness  preventing a free flow of circulation of all emotions...We are "blocked" by Samskara and this barrier can even prevent the positive seeds from growing and coming up into mind consciousness. It can lead to mental illness, according to Thich Nhat Hanh. 

Emotion is just energy, right?  It is meant to be experienced, all of it,  as is all of Life.  Things come in to our experience, then they leave our experience. We are not meant to cling to any of it which we intentionally and unintentionally do when we judge and then repress and suppress. We are just meant to allow it all to flow through. We need to allow the energy of our emotions to manifest, to experience them and then let them go

Restoring the circulation of the mind. 

Our practice then is about getting rid of the stored stuff but  first we need to stop adding to the junk piles in our minds. Michael Singer tells us we must stop putting more stuff in.  If you want to clean out a closet you don't keep filling the closet with more stuff, right? So our practice begins there...in simply becoming aware of our tendency to judge what it is we want to experience in our awareness and what we don't.  Notice when we judge something as unpleasant, notice when certain external things trigger us, remembering it is not the external thing that is the problem...but the stuff inside.  Do not add that "new stuff" to the pile. Let that go first.  Relax and release into what ever shows up in front of you....with the willingness to let go of what is stuffed inside.

Don't Fight-Invite

Then, Hanh tells us,  we must become aware of any mental formation that manifests in mind consciousness.  It is good to recognize when these formations come up and to call them  by their true name. We need to remember that there are many seeds of mental formations that are wholesome and positive and healing within our stored consciousness too...we want these to manifest. Mindfulness, compassion and kindness can be called upon when the less than positive manifests.  We can surround the anger, the resentment, the depression, for example, with these positive manifestations, these positive formations. Instead of resisting or fighting what might be deemed as an unwanted or unpleasant emotional energy, we might instead invite the experience into our mind consciousness, into our awareness. We wrap it in mindfulness, compassion and kindness, rather than resistance. 

Embracing the Painful

"Hello painful emotion ( whatever it is). I know you are there.  I will take good care of you. 

After being embraced by mindfulness, compassion and kindness the pain inducing  mental formation will lose its strength. Like a crying baby, being rocked and soothed by its mother, it will suffer less and eventually stop crying.

The Practice

So we all have samskaras within us blocking the flow of healing Life energy from flowing through us. Our practice of healing and becoming more "spiritual" is such a practical one really. We do whatever we can to remove the blocks and barricades. We do not look outward  as the source of  these blockages...we look inward.  We become willing to experience all Life has to offer including those mental formations  we repressed and suppressed because we deemed them as things that "shouldn't be". We learn to stop adding to the pile and relaxing and releasing into the uncomfortable...mindfully embracing our pain as it surely cries itself to sleep, so the energizing, healing flow of Shakti can come through. We need to "let go of our stuff" to get to God.

All is well. 

 . 

Thich Nhat Hanh (January 11, 2022) Our Mind and Mental Formation. https://plumvillage.app/our-mind-and-mental-formations/

Michael Singer/ Sounds True. (n.d.) Michael Singer Podcast: Giving Meaning to the time between your birth and your death https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgNZs6_GmQs

Fleeting and Uncertain

 The world is not here to make you happy.  It is here to make you conscious by challenging you.

Challenges help us to become free of the human illusion that there is something wrong when Life becomes difficult...[Truth is],Life is fleeting and uncertain. 

Eckhart Tolle

Nonjudgmental Observation and Peace

 If we observe ourselves truthfully and non-judgmentally, seeing the mechanisms of our personality in action, we can wake up, and our lives can be a miraculous unfolding of beauty and joy. 

Don Richard Riso

I did up this video with others in mind but as I review it I realize I can learn from it. (Well that is a good thing ...at least someone will lol...my readership is down to the wee, wee numbers again.). I have been lost in mind and consumed by a heavy negative emotion lately.  I might have been feeding my personality.  Time for some mindfulness practice.  I cannot say that, at this point, I am experiencing a "miraculous unfolding of beauty and joy", but I always feel a certain peace when I do come back to my moment.

So there is a disidentification from the movement of thought and the fluctuating emotions. There is a stepping back.  You are not repressing anything. You are allowing it. But you can only allow it because there is an awareness. And that awareness is you, ultimately.

Eckhart Tolle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wd2CMXhU0s)

All is well.

The Drowning "Me"

 No matter what type of challenges or difficulties or painful situations you go through in your life, we all have something deep within us that we can reach down and find the inner strength to get through them.

Alana Stewart 

There is a bit of a conundrum that I am experiencing lately.  Maybe, in your own awakening, you are experiencing the same? There seems to be great discrepancy between what I "seem" to be experiencing and what I am coming to know as real. There seems to be a battle going on between the physical world and the deeper one as to which one gets "my" attention. I am so physically and emotionally exhausted, I am afraid the physical world is going to win. Sigh.

 I am hit, it seems, with one external challenge after another, to the point I feel overwhelmed with emotion, thought, stress, physical pain and exhaustion ...so much so that it feels  I am drowning in the suffering of  myself and others. (It takes a lot of external stressors to get me to this point these days...there has been a lot of "big" external stressors). That is an indication that I am being sucked in again to the waters of Life passing in front of me.  I am slipping from the peaceful center, from the shore/seat of Objective Observer.  When I am lost in believing I am in those waters,  rather than on shore watching, I feel myself  just thrashing around trying to keep my head up over the surface. The "me" is just trying to survive in the physical realm and having a hard time doing so.  My physical form and my mind (as a tool) is needed by others yet there this "me"  is thrashing around trying to keep it all from drowning. On the physical level, I am devoting so much of my time and energy to helping others but because of the complexity of the situations I am  not sure if I am helping them or not.  I worry that I am enabling more than helping...while my own "personal" affairs continue to fall into taters ( to the degree that that alone would drown a " person" in the physical realm) . Yet so much seems to be required of "me" for others as I take gulp after gulp of water into my lungs. In this physical reality, there is so much to deal with...stuff that cannot help but to draw me in. All absorbing, it seems.  I feel like the personal  "I" is drowning in it and the line between "me", "my" needs and "others" and "other"  needs is getting blurred. So I wonder ...do I even bother trying to swim to shore?  Or do I just let "myself" drown? And what would that drowning entail?  Letting my body go to the point of illness or death? Letting my mind go to the point of illness or death? I don't understand!

Now, I ask that because the deeper part of me says that losing self is a wonderful thing.  The practice I have been throwing myself into over the last few years was all about letting go of the "me" and the "my" and the "myself"...So this sense that "me" is  drowning in the waters of physical world stressors may be a good thing?  It does not feel like a good thing though! Let me tell ya! I am perfectly okay with letting my personality go and many of my so called "personal" desires and needs go for the sake of others...yet I do need my body and my mind, and some form of "hope", don't I to awaken...to go farther on this journey of "being"? 

Even without the giving of self to others, the external world sucks me in because there is so much pull to it in the form of "survival" stressors.  I imagine I would probably drown regardless. Then I ask, why?? Why...why is there so much stress in "my" life? What have I done wrong or what have I got stuck inside me in the form of conditioning and belief that is pulling me down?   I mean I accept full heartedly that Life is our greatest teacher, offering us the learning challenges we need to grow but at the same time I can't help but feel like a grade two student in an advanced calculus class. I have been sitting in that class, it seems, for decades and the lessons keep coming and coming and coming. I am overwhelmed by the complexity to the point I feel like I am being punished.  It is like just a big, "Duh? I can't learn under this much pressure. Why are you doing this to me?"

When I hear people speaking about the notion that we cocreate our lives, when we fully believe in the goodness of Life, when we trust in the universe and let go of all our skeptical doubt, when we are at the wonderful point of surrender Michael Singer speaks about...  everything  will flow smoothly, I  feel such a twisted knot in my gut. It is my main life purpose to be there ...yet there is no smooth about it on my path.  If we can truly manifest all that we ever wanted and needed, with the right spiritual attitude, what is wrong with "me"? I mean I know that "things" of the external world will not make me happy ...I do... and it is not necessarily what I want.   I am asking for so little of external world cooperation...just enough to get by and a little more peace in my external events, a little less suffering for those I love, and maybe a little more "hope"(though I am not too fond of that word.  My goal is peace and awakening ...no matter what...but in the meantime, I feel I need the challenges to be diminished just enough to catch my breath. Why can I not get that? That is a question I have asked so many times over the course of the last few years.

Then I feel such shame and failure for asking that out loud, like I am failing in my practice. I know there are so many out there, who suffer so much more than I do, whose circumstances are far more challenging.  Still, I continue to ask, why can it not be just a little easier externally or at the very least, why can I not find the peace I long for regardless of what is happening around me? It looks like the peace no matter what is my safest goal right now. 

I am just confused ...and I share that confusion because I know I can't be alone in this conundrum. I tell myself that this, what I am experiencing, is normal for someone at this stage of their evolution...the challenge is all there for a reason.  So I take my deep breaths, I bring myself back to the present moment whenever I catch myself swimming and thrashing around and I do my best to "float" to shore and observe it all happening from there.  It isn't happening to "me", I tell "myself"...(whoever that is)......it is just happening.  I breathe in whatever air I can, filling my lungs while on shore, knowing that I will fall in again and again and again. Maybe some day, just maybe, if circumstances do not change for the better I will discover the trick to spending more time on the shore than I do in the water.

All is well! 

Martha and Mary; Doing and Being

 "Martha, Martha, You are worried and distracted by many things, but few things are needed-indeed, only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her." 

Luke10:41-42

Back to the Videos:

I know, I know.  I said  was only going to come here every second day but I am here sometimes twice a day.  I guess, this is my vice, my addiction...my coping mechanism. Things are a little topsy turvy and adding this to my practice on a daily basis helps to stabilize me and balance me a bit.  It is so easy when we are "stressed" to become so "me" focused that we fail to see our connection with others outside the immediate situation we are dealing with.  Our worlds become small, narrow and confining.  Doing this writing and sharing as part of my practice is not only my "psychotherapy" but it also offers an attempt to extend outward away from "me-ness".  I am reminded of the "inter-beingness" of everything when I come here. 

With that in my mind, I was drawn back to the practice of answering questions that I began a few months ago.  The "50 ten minute answer" exercise that I participated in...more for my sake than others  allowed for this sense of "inter-beingness" to be established in my version of Life again. Even though I don't do much with these videos to promote or advertise...I still put them out there in the hope that they may also be of benefit to someone who may be looking for such an answer from a "non-expert". I let the universe decide how they are received.  :) 

Anyway, so here I am, answering questions once again in my imperfect, non-expert way.  The videos are also imperfect being that I do not have a video editing program on this new computer.  So they are coming to you fresh off the camera. 

Martha And Mary / Doing and Being

The Question: What is the parable of Martha And Mary all about and what has it got to do with mindfulness? 

From a spiritual point of view, the difference between Martha and Mary in the biblical story was that Martha was distracted by preparing what was needed for Jesus while He was visiting them, and Mary chose the "better part" by sitting at His feet and listening.  Being mind is the contemplative life path, and doing mind is the active life path.

Marsha Linehan, from the DBT Skills Training Manual: Second Edition, page157. (2017, Guilford: New York)

All is well in my world.

Beyond The Thinking Mind

 As water cannot rise higher than its own level, thought cannot think what is higher than thinking. It cannot conceive the mind which  thinks and still  less the power which generates the mind... 

...when the human mind gets out of its depth it drowns and vomits up a lot of dead ideas.

Alan Watts

I right now am once again dipping into Hindu teachings...indirectly through Alan Watts and Ram Dass as they speak to the wisdom of the Gita and to Rabindranath Tagore as he speaks mainly to the wisdom of the Upanishads. As a person brought up very strongly in Christian teaching, it felt very strange to me, almost blasphemous,  to read these classic scriptures, let alone study them in the way I first did years ago...but something drew me in. (My father would be making the sign of the cross on himself if he were still alive and  heard me saying that.) But like everything that has great wisdom in it ( I don't mean knowledge...I mean the kind of stuff that taps into some true knowing within) I feel compelled to go back again and again. I have done that with the bible too, if you are wondering. Lately, I kind of just fall into whatever shows up in front of me in the form of teaching if it feels right. The audio book, Shadana and these lectures from from Watts and Ram Dass showed up and they feel right. 

A hero of mine...well of most people, I suppose, Mahammad Ghandi, relied heavily on the Gita which is quite strange being that he was a man of nonviolence and the Gita is actually a story about Lord Krishna, the embodiment of Vishnu/God, disguised as a charioteer on a battlefield, talking a reluctant warrior by the name of Arjuna to go off and kill his kin. Quite violent, right?  Certainly not representing, it seems, the "turn the other cheek" teachings from Christ.  Or is there some actual similarities in the wisdom shared between Christian and Hindu teachings?  The more I study and compare the two, the more I see the similarities.  As far as the level of violence in these ancient scriptures, we have to remember that the Old Testament beats the Gita any day on the amount of violence in it. 

Of course, the differences lie mainly in the idea of soul.  Christians, Watts reminds us, see the soul as individual and Hindus tend to see the soul as universal.  In Christianity it is blasphemous to consider ourselves anywhere near God-like, while in Hinduism we are reminded that Atman ( soul) is Brahman.  The other "apparent" distinction is that of reincarnation.  And I use the word "apparent" because many great scholars propose that the original bible included the possibility of reincarnation in it but that part of the bible, along with the Gospel of Thomas,  was removed by one of the popes prior to the middle ages.  

What I like about the Gita and the Upanishads is that they touch that deep seated wisdom in  all of us if we are open, that I am just beginning to tap into. They offer a living wisdom...a way of approaching Life with  non duality  and detachment, much like the Buddhist teachings offer. As a yogi, of some kind just beginning to understand the other limbs of yoga that exist beyond the Hatha component...I like the reference of yoga throughout the Gita in relation to action...

...treating alike pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, engage in the battle, for the sake of the battle, and thus you will incur no sin. To action alone has thou a right, not at all to its fruition...fixed in yoga, do thy work...abandoning attachment, with an even mind, in success and future. Evenness of mind is called yoga...Yoga is skill in action.

I still get a little weebie-geebie when I read the part about engaging in battle but am called to understand it.  If Ghandi, the most peaceful man who lived in our recent past, could find solace in these words they must be pointing to something deeper than I can understand...and that takes me to the above quote again from Watts. 

And these words of wisdom from  Chapter Three of Sadhana...remind that there is so much more to this than what appears...

• every so called evil or imperfection will be corrected by the greater all
• what is immoral is perfectly moral [this needs to be explained]
• We can partake in life with disinterested goodness
• Man’s individuality is not highest self
• Man’s deepest joy is in  growing greater and greater in union with the ultimate
• The most important lesson we are to learn is not that there is pain but that it is up to us to transmute that pain into joy
• Accepting pain as an element of our joy is what we are here to do

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·          I don't know...just rambling because I am rumbling with these idea, I suppose. I know that what we are to learn goes way beyond thought and mind, so how can it be put into words, especially with my meager ones?

All is well

Be Here and Now/ Ram Dass & Alan Watts .Essential Teachings of the Gita: Being in the Way, Ep.11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww8DdVhIPWQ

Greatest AudioBooks/ Rabindranath Tagore. Shadana: The Realization of Life. 

A Commitment to Grow In Consciousness

 To really grow you have to decide that, that is what your life is about, nothing else. ..If what you are doing is living for growth, living for liberation, living for freedom, the rest will take care of itself. If what you are doing is living for the rest...living for your name, fame, finance, relationships.... neither they will evolve very high and either will you...you have to devote your whole life to your evolution...

Michael Singer 

I have decided long ago, that I want growth over everything else. I just want to do the work of letting go of  what is binding me!

Life is not the problem.  I am!

I have come to realize that it isn't the world and all its conflicting events that pass before me or through me that is the problem, if I feel I have one,  but my mind.  Though Life is really, really challenging at times, especially lately, I am committed to learning and growing from her. 

...if the world is disturbing you...there is nothing wrong with the world...there is something wrong with you. It is always coming from you...A being that wants to grow uses every single moment of life for that purpose.

Neutral Focus

As I tried to do in the little, far from perfect, mindfulness video I added a few entries ago, bringing our attention to the "neutral" as we experience  the life unfolding in front of us, is so important. When we are not committed to the practice of using Life as our teacher, we tend to look past everything that is neutral...meaning it does not evoke a reaction in us...in search of those things, events, people that  are either attracting us or repulsing and disturbing us. We bring our attention to that which the mind deems as pleasant, and that which the mind deems as unpleasant, not seeing that the objects of our attention are only pleasant or unpleasant because we deem them to be in our minds.

We need to notice the neutral that exists between our "likes and dislikes", our judgements of "good or bad; right or wrong, should be or shouldn't be". We need to observe that which does not create change or reaction in us. Doing so will help to create  a balanced state as we observe the neutral experience with cool, calm detachment.   We then expand our attention to all of that which unfolds in front of us, trying to create that sense of equanimity with all that Life provides...grasping none of it, pushing away none of it...and allowing all of it. Here we are being aware of what simply is...

A Practice Of Working on Self

But doing this is a process, a committed practice that involves working on self instead of working on the world.

Yoga is about saying that I only have time to work on coming to the realization that "I can't solve problems by working on things outside."  You want a state where you are at peace with everything in the universe....so that all things in life have this peacefulness, this neutrality... [On doing so]you will feel a depth or fullness that people seldom feel

The yogi comes to realize that all of life is beautiful, all of life is fulfilling, every single moment and if it isn't, it isn't because  there is something wrong with it,  it is because there is something wrong inside of you . If you want to fix that you have to fix what is  wrong inside of you. There is nothing wrong with life, there is nothing right with life...it just is.  Michael Singer

We need to stop putting all our energy in determining how life should be and going off , attempting to make it so. We need to work on ourselves.

You work on yourself every single moment of every single day no matter what you are doing or who you are with.

The Real Work

We work on ourselves by sitting in stillness and silence, by meditating and being mindful, by learning from the great teachers...but it is so much more than that. We don't just observe ourselves being peaceful and calm...we need to observe ourselves reacting to Life...slipping out of that peaceful center, again and again and again. It is more important to understand what takes us out of the peaceful state than it is to understand how to go there, according to Singer.  We need to notice what is happening inside us as we experience Life. How else can we fix what is broken. We cannot stay in meditation forever. 

True yoga is about watching yourself in your everyday life...Michael Singer

Life Is The Pathless Path

How do you work on yourself in this pathless path, the path where  life itself is the path, the guru, the teacher....all the circumstances are attempting to liberate you and free you? ...The continuity of consciousness across the experience is the real work Michael Singer.(somewhat paraphrased) 

The goal is to stay deeply centered in all situations without getting lost...

Life will get thrown away...it is constantly getting thrown away...circumstances, and  events  will come into our experience, pass and be forgotten.  We need to stop clinging to any of it, running from any of it and see it all as neutral so we can practice maintaining consciousness in every given situation.

Life is spiritual therapy

Improving The Gap

I don't know about you but I still get lost all the time despite my commitment to practice. I get sucked in and pulled away.  I still catch myself pushing away and squishing down that which I don't want to experience too.  I neglect and ignore the stabilizing neutral when I am so lost in this tendency. But I am catching myself doing that again and again and again.  When I realize that I allowed myself to get pulled away from center, I pull myself  back to the moment with breath or my attention on what is right in front of me.  I can release my focus from the object of consciousness and put it back on consciousness...becoming aware, once again, that I am aware. I begin to look at what took me away and why...the roots of it all...and I begin my practice again. I need to ask, as Singer suggest we do, why do I prefer things...why do certain things make me comfortable and why do things disturb me. Then I continue to work on myself. 

  That act of losing your center and then coming back is a very spiritual thing ...It is the core of your practice. 

What it means to work on yourself is to do whatever is necessary  to prolong the period of time before you get sucked in  and then shorten the period before you come back out.

Care More About Consciousness Than Anything Else

For the most part, I do care more about being conscious than anything else but that doesn't mean it is easy.  Oh man, no.  I often find myself running after or running from certain things out there.  My focus still too often goes onto the objects of consciousness rather than the consciousness. I did get sucked into the challenges I have been experiencing lately...big time...  and they seemed to be far, far from neutral to my experience of life. I probably dwelled there longer than was healthy and it took me a little longer to come back, if I am completely back, that is.  But I know that any sense of hardship and struggle I feel right now,  has nothing to do with Life and  everything to do with the fact that I am off center. I am off center. I need to get back to center. These challenges offer me a wonderful learning opportunity to help me master this skill. 

Your life is for the purpose of your being able to remain centered, clear, calm, filled with spirit and awareness and consciousness while all of the events of your life pass before you and while  you interact with all of them. Michael Singer

Well, that is the way I see it and Michael Singer's words of wisdom have reminded me of the importance of my commitment.

All is well. 

Michael Singer/Sounds True. Michael Singer Podcast:The Commitment to Stay Conscious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQcBg4SY5A

Stages

 Spirituality and the spiritual path is way more simple than people make it. In fact, it is the most simple thing you can do with your life, everything else is just complicating the issue. 

Michael Singer

I think we are all on a spiritual path whether we know it or not, whether we call it that or not.  I think the term "spiritual" trips a lot of people up and they tend to walk on tip toes around it.  Still we are all on this path. We are all attempting to feel okay. The "spiritual path" (just a label) is simply  a destination derived from wanting to feel okay. It is the only way we can feel truly okay. 

The Wheel/ The Wrong Path

 Instead of owning that natural and healthy desire to be okay, however, we tend to look to unskillful and unwholesome desires. We  grasp for and cling to things out there. We pull in what we "believe" makes us feel well and push away that which we believe makes us feel bad. Our mind becomes preoccupied by that motivation....it becomes hyperactive in trying to get us what we want and avoid what we don't want.  All our energy becomes involved in controlling, manipulating, fixing the external world so it gives us what we want and protects us from what we don't want.  We externalize the truth that we want to be well. This makes us crazy! 

When we realize this way is not working in making us feel okay inside, that our desiring and our averting is not getting us anywhere closer to our goals, that it doesn't make us happy. ...we begin to question if there is another way. There is another way...there is the spiritual path. 

What happens when a person becomes spiritual?  They give up on their wants and not wants.  They get off that hamster wheel, Singer uses as analogy,  that exhausts them without taking them anywhere. So there is a process...a series of steps that Michael Singer shares in The Stages of the Spiritual Path that I hope to relay in the way they were intended to be relayed. 

Stage  One :  Realizing That What We Are Doing Is Not Working

This stage is all about  realizing that the hamster wheel is not getting us anywhere but crazy and exhausted. We realize that there is something wrong with the formula we have been using all our lives. There is something wrong with working nonstop, thinking and planning non stop all of our lives at something that is supposed to get us somewhere and give us what we need...but that never gets us  there.  Isn't there? 

Stage Two: Let Go of the Mind!  

Once we  realize this " you relax in the face of what your mind is saying" . We stop listening to the mind.  We decide not to go that route anymore.  We get off the wheel.  At this point we may have no idea where we are going.  We are not thinking about "spirituality"...we just want to feel okay and we know our past ways of getting there were not working.

We might say:

"I have no idea.  I am just not doing that because it doesn't work. 

The mind may throw a tantrum...in an attempt to  keep us doing what we have been doing. It will do whatever it can to convince us to get back on that wheel. It is important here not to listen. We relax into it and refuse to fall into its attempt to convince us that it will give us all we want and protect us from all we  don't want. Just relax and  watch the temper tantruming mind  as we watch what is happening around us

The mind is just a thing in the universe...it is not yours. Everyone has one.  It just says what it says because it is programed to do so. 

We need to  relax behind it and let it be what it is. When the mind says "I want this and I don't want that!"...just relax.

Commit to not Listening to what the Mind says.  Just observe and begin to see yourself as the observer. 

We let go, here,  of clinging to the idea that life should be a certain way. It is our will that has been getting involved in the mind. We have believed, identified and got lost in the mind's tendency to grasp and avoid. We must see that we are not that.

Don't listen to any of the mind.  First learn who you are and relax in the state of whatever the mind has to say...you will start to be aware you are there. 

Step Three:  See who you are

We will, in this stage, begin to see that we are  "Solidly seated in the Seat of Self" and not scattered around as we  were when we followed the mind. 

When we are solidly seated in the Seat of the Soul we have traded neurosis for peace. From this place, we start to feel love, joy and enthusiasm emerging from within us because the energy that was once directed towards getting us to  do what the mind was telling us to do... is now  free to flow through us.  We no longer get so disturbed by what is happening out there. 

Relax deeper...be aware of our experiencing without trying or effort...noticing and allowing what is in front of us.

You are beautiful...not your mind, not your personality...you...the person that is in there. 

As long as we don't get involved in what the mind is saying...we are happy and at peace

We appreciate and settle into the spiritual life...living in the shakti flow...needing nothing...

Other things and ppl are not needed to feel okay but  they allow the flow of love to  keep getting stimulated

From here we learn to say: "whatever is unfolding, I will get involved in"

We become detached to external circumstances.  We realize we are in the world but not of it...

Stage Four: Leaning into the Energy

At some point  of feeling good, we  will wonder where the  energy is coming from. We may lean back a little further to  feel it flowing in behind us, pushing on us.  In this stage we learn to lean back into the energy and just rest as it expands around us

Up until now consciousness was settling down into a focal point but now it is getting beyond focal point. We recognize the expanding consciousness and begin losing "self"  as we fall into the source of all this shakti...We are still "me" bathing in ocean of energy. This is the beginning of samadhi

From here we can learn from great masters...those who have leaned back as far as a person can lean, losing  all sense of  duality, finding "yoga" or union...and may decide to follow their example.

Stage Five: Lean Back as Far s You can Go.

In this stage we let go of  the need to be separate.  If we fall back far enough we will see it is  not us experiencing the energy...just energy. 

Imagine  a drop of water falling into the ocean from an eye dropper...find it"

We become one with everything.  We tap into the reality of Einstein's unified field of energy...We have attained complete enlightenment in a continuum of relaxing away from what you were experiencing. This is a true letting go. 

This enlightenment does not change the outside of us.  We go on playing our roles:

There is a role for you to play in life...it will unfold in front of you...Don't sweat it...just let it go...it will unfold before you.

Well that is how I see the stages of spiritual awakening after listening to the linked podcast below. Key point?

Use every minute of your life to let go of that which is trying to get you to not let go. 

All is well!

Michael Singer/Sounds True . The Stages of the Spiritual Path: A Continuum of Letting Go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W23Qob0d6rA